- CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®) is a cloud platform for CFD running OpenFOAM and supporting software including ParaView and FreeCAD.
- Users can launch CFDDFC in a few minutes on virtual machines (aka instances) with 1-96 processor cores or clusters of 100s of cores.
- Users access instances via remote desktop from Linux, macOS or MS Windows, or terminal login, securely using SSH public key encryption.
- Web CFDDFC (released 2023 on AWS) provides a remote desktop via a web browser.
- Pay-as-you-go computing replaces large computers on premises — no more administration headaches and job queues.
- Available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, the two leading public cloud providers.
- Open source software provided on OpenFOAM’s native Linux OS, with no costly, proprietary software interface.
- Maintained and developed by CFD Direct, who produce and maintain OpenFOAM on behalf of the OpenFOAM Foundation.
CFDDFC® v11 Released
CFD Direct announces the release of version 11 of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®), available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace as the standard CFDDFC product, Web CFDDFC and CFDDFC (Arm). Standard CFDDFC v11 includes OpenFOAM v11, ParaView v5.10, OpenMPI v4.1.5 and FreeCAD v0.20, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Web CFDDFC has the same software running on Ubuntu 22.04. CFDDFC (Arm) is server-only including OpenFOAM v11 and OpenMPI v4.1.5, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. CFDDFC and Web CFDDFC run on single instances with up to 96 cores on Intel C7i instances (c7i.48xlarge) or C6a AMD instances (c6a.48xlarge) or in clusters with of instances up to 1000 cores or more.
Web CFDDFC® Released
CFD Direct is pleased to announce the release of Web CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC®), providing OpenFOAM via a remote desktop in a web browser, running on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Web CFDDFC is a pay-as-you-go Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from AWS Marketplace, providing a full desktop environment with graphical applications, including OpenFOAM v10, ParaView v5.6.0, OpenMPI v4.1.1 and FreeCAD v0.19.2, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Web CFDDFC runs on single instances with up to 64 C6i Intel cores (c6i.32xlarge) or 96 C6a AMD cores (c6a.48xlarge), and in clusters with with good parallel scaling on clusters of instances up to 1000 cores.
CFDDFC® v10 Released
CFD Direct is pleased to announce the release of version 10 of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®), available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace as the standard CFDDFC product and CFDDFC (Arm). Standard CFDDFC v10 includes OpenFOAM v10, ParaView v5.6.0, OpenMPI v4.1.1 and FreeCAD v0.19.2, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. CFDDFC (Arm) is server-only including OpenFOAM v10 and OpenMPI v4.1.1, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. CFDDFC runs on single instances with up to 64 C6i Intel cores (c6i.32xlarge), 96 C6a AMD cores (c6a.48xlarge) or 64 C7g Graviton cores (c7g.16xlarge) and in clusters with with good parallel scaling on clusters of instances up to 1000 cores.
CFDDFC on AWS C6i/M6i
CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC®) is our established platform for running OpenFOAM, ParaView and supporting software using cloud computing. CFDDFC is now available on AWS C6i and M6i instances of Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2). These instances use the 32-core 2.9 GHz (3.5 GHz with turbo-boost) Intel Xeon Platinum 8375C (Ice Lake) processor. With 2 processors per socket, the largest single instances, c6i.32xlarge and m6i.32xlarge, includes 64 cores. C6i and M6i instances run at up to 50 Gbps of network speed at the largest instance size, which also supports Elastic Fabric Adapter to provide high speed networking across a cluster of instances.
CFDDFC® v9 Released
CFD Direct is pleased to announce the release of version 9 of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®), available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace as the standard CFDDFC product and CFDDFC (Arm). Standard CFDDFC v9 includes OpenFOAM v9, ParaView v5.6.0, OpenMPI v4.1.1 and FreeCAD v0.19.2, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. CFDDFC (Arm) is server-only including OpenFOAM v9 and OpenMPI v4.1.1, running on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. CFDDFC runs on single instances with up to 48 C5 Intel cores (c5.24xlarge) or 64 C6 Arm-based cores (c6g.16xlarge) and in clusters with with good parallel scaling on clusters of instances up to 1000 cores.
AWS HPC Competency 2021
CFD Direct Limited has become one of the first approved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partners to achieve High Performance Computing (HPC) Competency status. This designation recognises that CFD Direct has demonstrated deep experience helping customers optimise their computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workloads on AWS. Using CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®), engineers and scientists can launch instances, pre-configured with OpenFOAM, in minutes — with up to 48 processors and clusters of 100s of processors.
Remote CFD with OpenFOAM
With restricted access to the workplace, a CFD engineer can be productive by quickly switching to remote CFD using CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®) and by learning effective CFD. CFDDFC is a turnkey system with OpenFOAM and supporting software running in its native Linux environment on AWS. Engineers can launch remote instances (virtual machines) in 2 minutes providing remote desktop access to 48 core instances and scalable clusters of 100s of cores. At the same time the engineer can learn to be more productive by registering for our Live Virtual OpenFOAM Training, taken from the safety and comfort of their home using the CFDDFC system.
CFDDFC® v8 for Azure
CFD Direct is pleased to announce the release of version 8 of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®) for Microsoft Azure. Available from the Azure Marketplace, CFDDFC v8 includes OpenFOAM v8, ParaView v5.6.0, OpenMPI v2.1.1 and FreeCAD v0.18.3, running on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Users can launch pay-as-you-go VMs from the image in minutes and connect via remote desktop or terminal login using SSH. Azure offers a wide range of VM types including the compute-optimised F-series with up to 36 physical cores (F72sv2) and the high performance computing H-series.
CFDDFC (Arm) for AWS C6g
CFD Direct has launched CFDDFC® (Arm), a marketplace product on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with OpenFOAM. CFDDFC (Arm) is a variant of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ for Amazon EC2 instances running Arm-based Graviton2 processors, in particular the C6g instances for compute-intensive workloads. CFDDFC (Arm) operates in server-mode without graphical applications and includes OpenFOAM 7 and OpenMPI 4.0.3 running on Ubuntu Server for Arm 20.04 LTS. For batch CFD jobs with guaranteed access on-demand, users can save 35% on their EC2 costs with C6g instances.
CFDDFC® v8 Released
CFD Direct is pleased to announce the release of version 8 of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC®), available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace as the standard CFDDFC product and CFDDFC (Arm). Standard CFDDFC v8 includes OpenFOAM v8, ParaView v5.6.0, OpenMPI v3.1.4 and FreeCAD v0.18.3, running on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. CFDDFC (Arm) is server-only including OpenFOAM v8 and OpenMPI v4.0.3, running on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. CFDDFC runs on single instances with up to 48 C5 Intel cores (c5.24xlarge) or 64 C6 Arm-based cores (c6g.16xlarge) and in clusters with with good parallel scaling on clusters of instances up to 1000 cores.
OpenFOAM HPC with AWS EFA
In November 2018, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announed Elastic Fabric Adapter, a network interface for HPC applications running on EC2. We previewed the EFA technology, running benchmark CFD simulations with OpenFOAM, presented previously: (1) strong scaling – 97 m total cells, external aerodynamics around a car; (2) weak scaling – 100 k cells per core, flow over a weir. At 1008 cores, EFA delivered linear scaling in the strong scaling test and ~70% scaling in the weak scaling test. With linear strong scaling, EFA enables faster solutions for the same cost simply by running on more cores. The combination of open source software, C5n instances and EFA provides impressive HPC, at a price accessible to all.
OpenFOAM HPC with AWS C5n
CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC) is a Marketplace Product for AWS EC2, that provides a complete platform with OpenFOAM and supporting software running on Ubuntu Linux. It enables simple, fast creation of a cluster of instances to run CFD with OpenFOAM. We tested Amazon EC2 C5n instances, launched in November 2018, on 2 cases of steady-state, external aerodynamics around a car and transient simulation of water flowing over a weir. With meshes of 50-100 million cells, results showed 70%-90% scaling at 504 cores. The cost of the simulations was in the order of $100, compared to $100,000+ to purchase on-premises hardware and licences of proprietary software.
CFDDFC v7.0 Released
CFD Direct is pleased to announce the release of version 7.0 of CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC), the leading marketplace product for CFD on Amazon Web Services. CFDDFC v7.0 includes OpenFOAM v7, ParaView v5.6.0, OpenMPI v3.1.4 and FreeCAD v0.18.3, running on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. CFDDFC v7.0 supports Elastic Network Adapter and Elastic Fabric Adapter which provide higher network performance on C5n instances. This delivers good parallel scaling performance on clusters of instances up to 1000 cores. The command line interface includes new options from simple launch of clusters and monitoring of costs.
CFDDFC on AWS C5/M5
CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) is our established platform for running OpenFOAM, ParaView and supporting software using cloud computing. CFDDFC is now available on AWS C5 and M5 instances of Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2). The CFDDFC product page on AWS MarketPlace now lists CFDDFC versions 5.2 and 4.2, corresponding to versions 5 and 4 of OpenFOAM, respectively. Users who launch CFDDFC with the command line interface should update their installation of CFDDFC immediately.
Cloud CFD Course | OpenFOAM
CFD Direct announces the release of their new 1 day Cloud CFD course, the fourth course in their portfolio of OpenFOAM Training. The course enables users to run CFD with OpenFOAM on AWS, training the tools and processes for inexpensive, secure, efficient cloud use. The course addresses the main concerns of using public cloud: cost management, security, efficient CFD and data management. It exploits the cost benefits of cloud: meeting fluctuating demand for hardware at a cost that represents consistent, high utilitisation; and using cheaper, spare capacity, with an application that does not require 100% availability.
CFDDFC Command Line Interface
CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) is our established platform for running OpenFOAM, ParaView and supporting software using cloud computing. We are pleased to announce the release of our CFDDFC command line interface (CLI) for quick, simple, deployment of OpenFOAM CFD workloads with CFDDFC on Amazon EC2. The CLI is a simple shell script named “cfddfc” that users can follow a few short short steps to get running. It uses EC2 Spot Instances by default, and provides cost estimates for data transfer to help users run workloads at lowest cost.
CFD Direct Year 2: Cloud
In Year 2, CFD Direct updated its OpenFOAM cloud computing platform — CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC) — to OpenFOAM 4.1, running on Ubuntu 16.04. Feedback from users was very positive, including a 5-star rating on the CFDDFC Marketplace Product page at at Amazon Web Services (AWS). We became an Advanced Technology Partner of AWS, and produced a case study on the cost of CFD on AWS EC2 that concluded, in particular, that the cost of Spot instances was approximately 40% of the total cost of ownership of on-premises hardware. We made CFDDFC available on AWS X1 instance types, running simulations on 32 and 64 physical cores in a single instance.
Cost of CFD in the Cloud
Cloud computing replaces large upfront expenses with low, variable payments that only apply to what you use. CFD simulations cover a range of sizes and complexity. Activity is generally interrupted by quiet periods when simulations are halted, e.g. when a simulation ends non-working hours, during analysis of results or preparation of a new simulation, etc. The fluctuating demand makes CFD well suited to a pay-per-use model. Users need to understand the costs involved to get the best value from cloud and be confident that they fall within budget. This article explains the costs, with an example of an external aerodynamics calculation with OpenFOAM using CFD Direct From the Cloud™ (CFDDFC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
CFD Direct Year 1: Cloud
In 2015, we launched CFD Direct From the Cloud (CFDDFC), a complete OpenFOAM cloud computing platform that includes the latest version of OpenFOAM and supporting software running on Ubuntu. The platform provides OpenFOAM in its native Linux OS, which users can access directly from a terminal or via a remote desktop. CFDDFC is available for Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a product on AWS Marketplace, pre-configured for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). CFDDFC is in constant use, on a range of EC2 Instances ranging from the small instance, eligible for Free Tier, to the Compute Optimized instances including the largest with 36 virtual (18 physical) CPUs, and with multiple instances networked as a cluster for larger workloads.